On December 24, the Raipur district additional sessions court sentenced for life civil rights activist Dr. Binayak Sen, our party Politburo member Comrade Narayan Sanyal, trader Piyush Guha under IPC, Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act and UAPA implicating them in false cases. The life sentences were pronounced by B.P. Verma under IPC section 124 (sedition), 120 B (conspiracy) and many other kinds of sentences were pronounced under various sections of CSPCA and UAPA. The eight year sentence for Asit Sengupta was pronounced on the same day by O.P. Gupta. Both these judgments are the latest additions to the huge cache of anti-people, fascist repressive measures of the Indian ruling classes.

Sentencing for life our party Politburo member Comrade Narayan Sanyal, Binayak Sen, a doctor who had dedicated his life as a doctor serving the poor people selflessly, a prominent civil rights activist and the vice-president of PUCL and Piyush Guha, a trader belonging to Kolkata is the most shameless thing for the rulers to do even while boasting that this is the biggest democracy in the whole world. Opposing the repressive policies of the government, the fascist Salwa Judum, raising his voice for the repeal of the black law CSPSA and standing in support of the just peoples movements are the `crimes' committed by Dr. Binayak Sen for which he has been punished with life sentence. When he was arrested in May 2007 and kept in jail for two years, immense protests were held and severe condemnations were issued by democratic sections, medical community, Nobel laureates and many others in India and abroad. Pronouncing this sentence ignoring all this can only mean that the fascist rulers are without any scruples or embarrassment issuing a threat to all the democratic, progressive and patriotic sections of our country. If responding positively towards people's issues in a legal, democratic manner, serving the people sincerely and criticizing the anti-people policies of the government is `sedition', then one can imagine what kind of `democracy' is being practiced in this country and how dangerous it is for the people. The eight year sentence for Asit Sengupta (editor of the Hindi version of 'A World To Win' which is published in various languages all over the world) who is languishing in jail since three years with the false accusation that he was participating in Maoist activities is nothing but stifling the Freedom of Press. Recently, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, DGP Viswaranjan, Bastar IG Longkumer and Dantewada SP Kalluri gang had published pamphlets under the name `Maa Danteswari Adivasi Swabhimani Manch' and had openly declared that they would kill journalists SRK Pillai, Anil Sharma and Yaswant Rai along with democrats Himanshu Kumar and Arundhati Roy and had the audacity to declare that it is indeed their own doing! So much for the `rule of law' harped upon by our rulers day in and day out!

Comrade Narayan Sanyal, a 73-year old veteran communist who began his revolutionary life in 1968 and has dedicated more than four decades of his life for the liberation of the oppressed people, is ailing with various health problems and has been languishing in the dark dungeons of the fascist Chhattisgarh government since five years. The Sonia-Manmohan-Chidambaram-Raman Singh terrorist gang is killing Maoist leaders in fake encounters and sentencing many of them to harsh punishments under black laws. They are subjected to physical and mental tortures in the inhuman conditions prevailing in jails.

On July 29, 2010, our party activist Comrade Malati @ Santi Priya and a worker Surendra Kosaria were sentenced to ten years imprisonment using false witnesses under the case that Maoist propaganda CDs were sent to the MLAs. Amitabh Bagchi, a Politburo member of our party and Comrade Kartik, a state committee member of West Bengal, incarcerated in Ranchi jail, were also sentenced to life imprisonment through fast track court in Jharkhand. On October 29, the AP government sentenced Comrade Panduranga Reddy and three others to four years imprisonment in the Alipiri case (attack on ex-CM Chandrababu) using false witnesses. Many more revolutionary activists and ordinary people are being sentenced to very harsh punishments including capital punishment by the reactionary courts serving the exploiting ruling classes. Comrades Sushil Roy and Kobad Gandhi who are senior leaders and ailing with various health problems and old age; comrades Shobha, Patitpavan Haldar, Pramod Mishra, Vijay, Asutosh, Balraj, Chintan, Biman, Bidhan, Chandi Sarkar, Balganesh, Jharkhand Abhen's Jeetan Marandi and thousands of other comrades are denied bail, being implicated in false cases one after another and made to languish in jails for years together. In West Bengal, Comrade Swapan Das arrested under UAPA was denied health care in Jail and became the first martyr of this draconian law.

The UPA government bent on selling our natural and human resources to imperialist MNCs like Vedanta and to comprador bourgeoisie like Tata, Essar, Jindal, Mittal etc has declared CPI (Maoist) as the biggest internal security threat as it is standing in their way offering stiff resistance to this unlimited loot. As part of this, the government is carrying on vicious foul propaganda using its propaganda machine. Since August 2009, in the name of Operation Green Hunt the central and state governments are resorting to brutal attacks on the revolutionary movement and particularly adivasis are being massacred by deploying millions of police and paramilitary forces in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and other states. This offensive is carried on under the guidance and full support of imperialists, particularly the US imperialists. The exploiting rulers are using every means at their disposal to portray our party which is fighting with the lofty aim of establishing people's government of democratic classes basing on the unity of worker-peasants by overthrowing the imperialists, bureaucratic comprador bourgeoisie and the feudal classes, as `terrorist' and `traitor'.Why are the ministers, political leaders, big bourgeoisie and their brokers, the real traitors who are amassing billions of rupees in scams and stacking them in Swiss Banks shamelessly roaming in the corridors of power not booked under SEDITION? Why are all those criminals who perpetrated and facilitated the Bhopal Gas Tragedy not called CONSPIRATORS? How could striving for the liberation of the toiling masses become SEDITION? How could democrats who raised their voices and pens in support of people's movements be called CONSPIRATORS?

These sentences are nothing but a part of the bigger conspiracy of the ruling classes to eliminate all kinds of hurdles to their anti-people, unpatriotic and immoral neo-liberal economic policies. This is an alarm signal that fascist repression would intensify further in the near future. These judgments are an eye opener for those who believe and get deceived innocently that there is still some semblance of democracy in this country. Though the overt statements of the ruling gang declare that Maoist movement is their prime target, what is happening in reality is a fascist onslaught on progressive and democratic forces who wish for the welfare of the people and aspire to protect the interests of our country vis-à-vis the imperialists. Our party is appealing to the people to stand united against this offensive and defeat it through a determined fight.

The comprador governments are resorting to suppression of people's movements and nationality liberation struggles using black laws like UAPA, CSPCA, MCOCA and AFSPA following in the footsteps of the US government which promulgated black laws like the Homeland Security Act. The reactionary legal system which had never bothered to book or sentence the saffron terrorists who had killed many innocent people in the Mecca Masjid, Malegaon and Ajmer Sharif bomb blasts or the scamsters and political gangsters involved in scams like 2G Spectrum (worth 1,76,000 crores of rupees), Commonwealth games, Adarsh housing society, Karnataka lands and dozens and dozens of other scams are eagerly sentencing revolutionaries, people's leaders, democrats and activists of national liberation movements in Kashmir and North-East.

The CPI (Maoist) Central Committee is appealing to all democratic, patriotic forces, national liberation activists and to all civil rights activists, organizations, students, intellectuals, teachers, writers, artistes, doctors, lawyers, media friends, workers and peasants to come out on the streets condemning and opposing these judgments delivered through the reactionary legal system by the collusion of the UPA government at the centre and the BJP government in Chhattisgarh. We appeal to all of you to build united and militant agitations demanding the immediate repeal of UAPA, CSPCA, MCOCA and AFSPA. We appeal to all the progressive, democratic and revolutionary organizations, communities and individuals of various countries to condemn in severe terms this criminal act of the Indian ruling classes and express their vigorous protest in various democratic struggle forms. In the past the international community stood in strong solidarity with the Indian people's movements and had condemned the arrest of Binayak Sen and demanded his immediate release. Now the time has come for it to play this role more solidly.

Our party calls upon the people to observe protest week all over the country from January 2 to 8 against these judgments by creatively taking up various protest activities including press conferences, statements, dharnas, rasta rokos, meetings, protest rallies, processions, signature campaigns, wearing black badges, waving black flags, burning of effigies etc., and to take up legal battles condemning severely the anti-people, traitorous and fascist policies of the ruling classes.

Our party is calling upon all our ranks, PLGA forces and revolutionary mass organizations to take up various protest forms on this occasion by mobilizing vast masses.

Our Central Committee is making it very clear that no call for bandh is being given as part of this protest week and is requesting the people and media not to believe the deliberate propaganda of the police to portray this as a bandh call.